Why You Should Stay For Saturday’s Football Game

This Saturday is the last home game of the season for the Nittany Lions, which means it is also Senior Day where we will honor the class in its last game at Beaver Stadium. Unfortunately, the last home game tends to fall over Thanksgiving break, and this season is no different.

Maybe you’re planning to skip town and head home on Friday after your last class ends, and with 1,915 tickets on the student ticket exchange for as low as $11 already, you’re probably not alone. I’m telling you that you might want to think twice about that decision.

You hear it all the time, but there’s a rich tradition at Penn State for having one of the best student sections in the country. That title may have waned for the non-premium games in recent years, but we all still have a reputation to uphold. Here’s some extra motivation before you consider your decision to head home and leave the team high and dry against Nebraska on Saturday.

1. Bill O’Brien wants you to.

“We just can’t wait to come into Beaver Stadium and hopefully it will be a great crowd,” he said on Tuesday. “I’m not in charge of ticket sales or anything like that, but I would imagine that the Penn State fans will turn out in force to show their respect for this senior class that stuck with this university and stuck with this football program.”

You don’t want to let BO’B down, do ya?

2. These players stayed. You should too.

From the commits who stayed committed to the players who could have transferred without penalty when the sanctions came down, this is a team full of Penn Staters who stuck around when they didn’t need to. They stayed dedicated to the university and the football program when they easily could have turned their backs and ran away from the turmoil (as a few did, which I needn’t name). As O’Brien has said in the past, these guys are a bunch of fighters, so you should be there to cheer them on this Saturday.

3. Do it for the seniors.

Saturday will be the last time that Glenn Carson, John Urschel, Stephen Obeng-Agyapong, and the rest of the team’s senior class will play at Beaver Stadium. They should play that game in front of a sea of blue and white instead of a sea of empty seats. And when you do stay, show up early enough for the pre-game ceremony, likely taking place about 30 minutes before kickoff.

4. Because it’s Penn State football.

Come on, be honest, would you rather spend Saturday afternoon at home with your parents or at Beaver Stadium with your best friends cheering on our team? That was a rhetorical question.

5. The players don’t get to go home very often.

Maybe, just maybe, the Penn State football players will get to go home on Thursday to spend some time with their families for Thanksgiving dinner, although probably not. Just two days later they have to be in Wisconsin for the final game of the season. And during the season the team is pretty much stuck in Happy Valley with the exception of bye weekend. If you stay for the game, you still get an entire week at home once you leave town on Sunday — it could be much worse.

So if you’re on the fence about this weekend’s Senior Day matchup with Nebraska, do the right thing and stick around.

About Author

Zach Berger is a StateCollege.com reporter and Onward State's Managing Editor Emeritus. You can find him at the Phyrst more nights than not. If he had to pick a last meal, Zach would go for a medium-rare New York strip steak with a side of garlic mashed potatoes and a cold BrewDog Punk IPA. You can reach him via e-mail at zach@onwardstate.com or on Twitter at @theZachBerger.